B·Concept/Recipes

Three bean-to-bar chocolate recipes

A chocolate cake is the one of pastry’s star products. A home made chocolate cake, a professional pastry chocolate cake… We can’t leave it behind! Don’t you think? 😏

We love it, and that's why chocolate is the main ingredient in many of our creations, such as the ChocoCoco entremets, which is part of the B-Concept pastry course online and extended that will start next October 9, 2023.

Dark glaze
Almond and 65% ChocoCoco sponge cake
The inside of the ChocoCoco entremets

Applying the method B·Concept and being faithful to our philosophy of creating from scratch according to our needs and those of the consumer, we decided to make the coating ourselves using the bean-to-bar technique. With it, we created three chocolates with different intensities: a 40% "milk" chocolate, totally vegan, made with organic coconut drink, and two dark chocolates , 65% and 82% respectively.

Thanks to the bean-to-bar, we have been able to design original and unique creations, with a totally new flavor profile.

Besides working with outstanding chocolate couvertures on the market, today we can make almost any type of chocolate bar by working with the main ingredient: the cocoa beans. Hence the name of the technique: bean-to-bar.

Out of the three chocolate couvertures we have created, the most interesting one is the «milk» chocolate vegan ChocoCoco couverture. To create this couverture, we only used 4 ingredients:

  1. Cocoa beans from a fair-trade cocoa from Ghana. We roast the cocoa beans, and we crack them to remove the shell (winnowing) to obtain the pure cocoa bean pieces, also known as cocoa “nibs”.
  2. Organic coconut sugar, which we choose to use since it preserves more nutrients and minerals than white refined sugar. Coconut sugar has a lower glycemic index.
  3. Powdered organic coconut milk; an ingredient that does not have colorings, nor added sugars or sweeteners. It is also high in protein (16 %).
  4. Cocoa butter of the highest quality.

Now that we have these four main ingredients, we will proceed to grind them in a food processor until we obtain a homogeneous paste. Next, we will refine it for 24 hours in a conching machine to obtain a very fine texture and eliminate the acidic flavors, thus obtaining a smooth and pleasant mouthfeel.

It may seem like a complicated task, but the truth is that achieving a high-quality couverture is not that difficult. The key is to use high-quality ingredients and adjust the timings until we obtain the desired aroma and texture.

As you have seen, , just by using three or four ingredients you can achieve a professional result. In this case, we obtained a vegan «milk» chocolate with a cocoa content of at least 40 %, with no dairy or any food of animal origin, creamy and with a slight coconut flavor.

Tempering

If you liked this blog post, don't hesitate to take a look at the Extended Online B·Concept Pastry Course,  to learn how to formulate your recipes from scratch with total freedom. 🤤

To help you practice, here are the recipes for our ChocoCoco bean-to-bar toppings, also in their versions without coconut drink, for lovers of intense cocoa flavor:

40 % «MILK» CHOCOCOCO

780g (26%) Coconut sugar

720g (24%) Cocoa nibs

960g (32%) Powdered coconut drink

540g (18%) Cocoa butter

65% DARK CHOCOCOLATE

1590g (53%) Cocoa nibs

1050g (35%) Coconut sugar

360g (12%) Cocoa butter

82% DARK CHOCOLATE

2010g (67%) Cocoa nibs

540g (18%) Coconut sugar

450g (15%) Cocoa butter

 ELABORATION PROCESS: Blend all the ingredients together in a food processor until a paste is obtained. Refine for 24 hours in a conching machine. Temper and store in a dry and cool place.

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